I've been to Vegas with friends and alone. What I like about alone is that for the time I'm there, I can pretty much live by my own time clock. If I go to a show, I of course have to be a certain place at a certain hour…and I do have to check out of the hotel and get myself to the airport at a specific time. But other than that, I can sleep when I want to sleep, eat when I want to eat, work or take a walk when I choose, etc.
This doesn't work so well at home. My cleaning lady comes when she comes. My assistant John comes when he can. I can't take a five-minute walk at 5 AM and get a hamburger. I have appointments. In Vegas though, I hang out the Do Not Disturb sign, plug in the laptop and once I do those two things, I can write three hours, nap for four, go get something to eat when my stomach demands, write another page or three, take a walk when my legs seem to need it, etc. I can even be around people if I like.
Around 3 AM one day/night on my latest trip, I suddenly realized I hadn't really interacted with another human being in person for a good twenty-four hours. A fellow at a place called Lobster Me sold me a lobster roll with the absolute minimum of conversation and that was all I'd eaten, all I'd communicated. So I left the computer and went downstairs. With no particular destination in mind, I walked through a few hotels, searching for something light to eat and maybe someone to talk to for a few minutes.
After wandering a brief while, I found myself at a lounge show where a gent seated at a piano was playing the Billy Joel song, "Piano Man." He was surrounded by maybe a hundred people, standing or sitting, most holding pretty large beverages and having just the best time. I don't drink — never have — and I'm often uncomfy around those who do but this crowd seemed mellow and in control. The performer was singing the first person lines from the song…
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone
And then everyone in the place — including, once I caught on, me — joined in on this part…
Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you got us feeling alright
And we went through the whole song that way as a very happy group experience — a group that was probably a lot of strangers only minutes before. I don't know who you'd call the Greatest Entertainer Working Today — Springsteen? Beyonce? Regis Philbin? — but whoever it is, they couldn't have made that audience any happier than the guy who was at that keyboard. And it did occur to me that he probably does that same bit three or four times a night, five or six nights a week.
Maybe it's standard to do "Piano Man" that way in bars. I've been in so few bars in my life, I wouldn't know. I just know that I wandered into that lounge in no particular need of cheering-up. I was fine going in but I was finer going out. In a little all-night cafe in the same casino. I got a cup of chicken noodle soup to go, then I went back to my room and resumed a script. I don't know why that little sing-along in the lounge made me feel so good but it did.